


We Are Who We Are (and right now we're lemurs in sexile)

by raven_aorla



Category: Pacific Rim
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemons, Fluff and Angst, Humor, I have neither excuse nor explanation, M/M, Newt is cis, Post-Movie(s), however his daemon is also male, which if you don't know is atypical in daemonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 12:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1018683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raven_aorla/pseuds/raven_aorla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's difficult being the small, to many people off-putting, daemons of men who are themselves rather small and off-putting. Canceling the Apocalypse has finally made them get their act together. And if that means Ludwig and Kunigunde get shunted to a corner to preserve a sense of privacy, at least that's a chance for them to talk to each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Are Who We Are (and right now we're lemurs in sexile)

**Author's Note:**

> Not my characters.

 

"I never got used to this part," Ludwig mumbled with exaggerated mock-annoyance as he picked through Kunigunde’s fur.

The bedraggled aye-aye daemon poked the tarsier-shaped daemon with one of her elongated, bony fingers. “We don’t groom.”

"Well, those two don’t get it on, despite all my hints over the years. Breach is closed thanks to the merge we did. First time for everything. Speaking of which…" Ludwig peeked over the stack of books Hermann had insisted the two daemons hide behind before he’d do anything remotely "coital" with Newt. It said a lot that Ludi, at least, considered Kuni the cuddlier of the two. "Has he - does he - I mean I didn’t expect that level of proficiency at -"

"I don’t peek and tell, Ludw-I mean, Ludi." She relaxed against his fuzzy, rotund body as he plucked debris and flecks of dried blood from her tufts of hair. "I doubt I could return the favor, given how much denser your fur is, how much filthier you are at the moment, and how unfortunately shaped my hands are."

Ludi glared as best he could, but he looked more like he had been electrocuted at the precise moment that he realized he’d forgotten a significant other’s birthday. “If you don’t want me to mope about all the bullying we got for being the same sex as my human, you need to stop going all, ‘I’m a hideous abomination of a primate, I look like something villagers kill because of how horrifying they find me, no one will ever love me, my human’s chalky screeches when he’s writing out equations hurts my ears so I get cranky and yell at the harmless adorable little ball of fluff and chibi eyes minding his own business on the other side of the lab…’”

Kuni stifled a laugh. Though Hermann was vulnerable towards being mocked and shunned because of the shape she had settled in, even without considering his disability and social ineptitude, he never took it out on her. He never blamed their loneliness on her. The least she could do was not embarrass him during a consummation devoutly to be wished. As it were.

During a Drift, as the humans shared their minds their daemons would essentially fuse, melting into one being with characteristics of both. An important part of Drift compatibility was having a copilot whose daemon was similar in shape to yours to minimize the potential trauma of the experience. Hence Mako’s Shikoku, or Japanese wolfdog, complementing Raleigh’s husky, still aching from the loss of Yancy Becket’s malamute. The Wu Tang clan all had snakes but in three different species; poor Sasha and Alexis’ bears had drowned with them. Herc Hansen had a pit bull to Chuck’s bulldog - it was the bulldog’s frantic barking that helped the rescuers find Chuck’s escape pod, both of them badly wounded but alive. Pentecost, may any Heaven in existence throw its gates open for him, had been one of the rare individuals whose daemon had never settled and therefore could Drift with any qualified pilot.

She’d felt terrible when she had settled the way she did. She knew Hermann wanted her to be a bird, just like he wanted to be a pilot, something graceful and elegant to offset his own ungainliness. Only in the Drift had she learned that Newt wanted a bird, too - because both scientists and musicians often had birds, and he wanted to do both. A primate or cat was for an intellectual who couldn’t carry a tune in a wheelbarrow. Ludwig, who had even been deliberately named by Newt’s musician father in a compromise with the scientist uncle who helped raise him, apologized when it happened. But pointed out that Newt had always been a terrible singer and both of them had secretly known it. They’d yelled at each other for a while.

Hermann and Kuni never met someone who’d fought with his OWN daemon before. But then, they never met someone else who called her by her nickname the second week they’d all known one another, like she was something endearing instead of a gargoyle of a creature. Ludwig made self-deprecating jokes about how his eyes were literally bigger than his stomach and how he looked like a hamster being probed by aliens until she started calling him by his nickname, too. Hermann didn’t actually tell her to stop, though he grumbled about it.

"Stop peeking, you pygmy of a voyeur," she hissed, yanking him back.

"That’s ethnically insensitive of you," Ludi whispered. "And I’ve had a very difficult day. That Chau gangster’s lioness daemon batted me around, also Newt nearly dropped me several times, oh and did I mention that Drift we did without anyone helping us and okay I was onboard with it but owww. So you owe me cuddles."

"Fine." Their humans could be so dense sometimes. Daemons that were both small primates, largely insectivores - though tarsiers will eat lizards given the chance and aye ayes consume a fair amount of plants - from humid little islands. Nocturnal. Busy hands and frantic dispositions. The last species in their own genus.

When the two of them burst into clouds of golden Dust, at the precise moment a similar phenomenon was metaphorically occurring a few feet away, the one thought between all four parts-of-souls was, “not alone not alone not not alone never alone again.”

**Author's Note:**

> According to my research, "Kunigunde" means "brave struggle".


End file.
